HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Matt Kenseth was in a deadpan and dry mood Thursday, seemingly unburdened by the pressure as the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship hunt neared its crescendo.

Or perhaps it was just a lighthearted sense of resignation bred by competing in the age of quite possibly the greatest driver in NASCAR history.

"The one thing that I don't like," Kenseth said with a chuckle while shooting a knowing glance at the rival to his right, "is there's one guy that thinks he has to win every single one of them. Doesn't leave much for the rest of us."

That's the Jimmie Johnson Era — summarized neatly by the 2003 champion who hasn't won another title since NASCAR's reigning dynasty opened for business.

Johnson will carry a virtually insurmountable 28-point lead over Kenseth into Homestead-Miami Speedway, and Sunday's Ford Ecoboost 400 seemed as if it were a perfunctory coronation of his sixth championship based on Thursday's news conference with the title contenders.

Kenseth and Kevin Harvick, who trails by 34 points, said all the right things about still being mathematically alive.

Mind games were deemed pointless Thursday.

"If he was building his own engine, I'd be messing with him right now," Kenseth cracked.

Harvick just shrugged. "You're not going to psych Jimmie Johnson out," he said. "If you want to win that championship, you're going to have to beat those guys."

It's a feeling that Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler and Patrick Ewing were familiar with when Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls were winning six of eight championships in the 1990s. It's a conundrum that tennis players could relate to since the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal juggernaut began racking up Grand Slam titles.

The cold truth is several stars probably won't win a Sprint Cup championship because of Johnson's dominance. Start with Harvick, who seemed destined for a crown when he burst into Cup in 2001.

A year later, Johnson entered the series. Harvick hasn't finished higher than third in points since.

He is one of several names who are missing a title from otherwise sterling resumes. Carl Edwards. Kyle Busch. Denny Hamlin. Greg Biffle. Kasey Kahne. All have been winning since 2006 — the start of Johnson's unprecedented run of five consecutive championships. None of them has a title.

A decade ago, if a garage poll would have been taken on which of the upstarts would be on the cusp of a sixth championship in 2013, Ryan Newman would have won in a landslide.

Newman, who won rookie of the year over Johnson in 2002 and led Cup with eight wins in '03, still doesn't own a championship — one of a ballyhooed group dubbed the "Young Guns" from the early '00s with that void.

"We certainly expected a lot of wins and championships from that group," ESPN analyst and 1999 champion Dale Jarrett said. "They've done a lot of really good things, but they haven't made that (title) surge, mainly because of Jimmie. It's kept them in the shadows just a bit."

It isn't attributable to a dropoff in talent. Consider the top five in points entering the season finale in 2003 – Kenseth, Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Newman, Jeff Gordon (Harvick was sixth) – looks a lot like the top five entering Homestead this season – Johnson, Kenseth, Harvick, Kyle Busch and Earnhardt (Gordon is sixth). It's just Johnson, whose average finish of 4.7 in this year's Chase is on pace for a record mark, is that good.

"Every fall, they raise the bar and just smoke everybody," Kenseth said. "I don't know how they do that. There are a lot of people capable of winning championships, but they have to figure out how to do it."